chris craft 26 stinger
 

i was wondering to see if anyone here has or had a 1989 stinger 26 feet and can give me some ideas on what to do or not what to do

have fun! pictures of before, and after! what else can I say! unless you have specific question! depending how far you want to work on the boat!

you have a really nice stinger/you have done a great job/what a beauty. i did something like your i will send you pictures later/
how fast is your boat? what props are you running?

also i am new to this site. Can you tell me how to send pictures here?
i want to send you pictures of my boat.

Eddito, Welcome to Stinger ownership and OSO! To post pictures, click on the little paperclip and "browse" your computer. You can then upload the pictures to your post.

26 1989 stinger
 

here are some pictures,i will send you some more of the engines and drives

this are my pics

1989 26 ft stinger
 

i think i got the pictures now

Nice boat!

it is a nice boat! Where are you from? Florida?

stinger 26
 

yes i am from hollywood fl./this boat has been in the family since 1989 so i went and did the hole thing over,pretty much the same you did with yours,i just like the way the boat rides in the rough waters,
this boat has been to the bahamas at least 8 times and it rides like a pillow,the only thing is that i was a little dissapointed with the performance of the new engines,i had one of the best people work my motors with cams and head work complete about $8,000 for engine work and only pick up 2 or 3 mph/i was told that i am not reving the engines on the power band i should be reving 5500 rpm not 4400rpm ,he also mention to me not to be affraid to overrev the engines that is safe. Do i need to step down to a 19p prop?
what do you think

the boat is at the fiberglass guy now,i am getting the side cabin windows close in to make it look more sporty and then i have to get the guy that airbrush the boat and blend in the colors back in the sides

I had an 85 and it was a great boat, best bang for the buck really. I went through everything on mine. Paint, cockpit, power an a bunch of other misc stuff. That boat was tons of fun and wasnt to bad in snotty Lake Erie water either. Lots of room for a 26 footer to. Best i ever saw was 60 with twin small blocks warmed up to maybe 300 a side (over proped but i liked the cruise i got out of them) i could regularly get around that yellow 28 Mag in the pic bellow :D. With the Alphas you dont want to get to nuts but i'm sure they could have taken a bit more HP(not much though), I kept this thing pretty turn key for the most part. When it came time to move up it was hard to get anyone to look at it in the 13-15K range (forget about 20's) bottom line is thats all they will ever be worth, an honestly i was fine with that because of how much use i actually got out of it. I ended up trading it in towards a 34' Scarab III. I mis the Scorpion, it really was one of the best, funnest boats i ever had. I dont regret going through that boat one bit :cool::drink:

heres a link http://stupidfastboats.com/dave.htm



moved my post in here from the other thread :D

my engines reved 5200 according to my engine builder when he redid them. I was spinning mirage 21 with 1.5 drive. you could try 19, but I'm surprised it spins just 4400...

i will try to send pictures of the cabin are/i am not so good with the computer

something dosent sound right. what pitch prop are you running now and what kind of prop is it. On my boat i ran a pair or Merc Mirages which are basically an entry level stainless prop. Not a great performance prop but i liked the cruise i got out of them. mine were 23" three blade. I got 50mph at 4000rpm all day long and i could only leg it to about 4900rpm and that would get me to 60 on its best day but i was over proped a bit. On a good set of small blocks you should be able to spin it 5 to 5400 or so depending on how they are built. Tell ya something else the only way it would hit 60 was porpoising like crazy, thats just the way that hull is. The last year i had it i put 2500 miles on it on GPS (no chit)

you are right about the ride of these boats. that always impressed me about mine. Tabs down it sucked ruff water like crazy. They really dont get the credit they deserve but most of that came from the build quality issues that plagued the company (most of that was in the larger stingers)

hey jeff what is your top speed

hey glassdave so no matter what top speed is never going to be over 60 mph because the hull desing? well i love my boat
what do you think i should do at this point.

I wouldnt say that but it does definetly hit a wall at 60ish and with the factory setup it always porpoised like crazy (mostly in flat water though). need info though you have only mentioned rpm.

what is your speed and what rpm is it at?
what prop are you running?
what pitch?
is you boat an Merc Alpha or OMC Cobra boat?
what has been done to engines beyond stock?

These hulls really lend themselves to performance cruising rather than high speed stuff. There was a guy on here several years ago had a very nice Stinger that he converted to big blocks/Bravos and i think he was just hitting 70 or so. I honestly think 65 isnt unreasonable to see with small blocks. The Alphas have a lower profile so they will tend to be a bit faster than the Bravos but they can only handle in the 400hp range and you have to be good on the throttles. I think you are in the ball park and it will take some tuning. You may need to look into swaping your exhaust for something that flows more, mods you builder did may be knocked down a bit by lack of breathing.

When my engines were freshened up and i went with a Comp Cams XTreme marine cams and Offy 360's manifolds along with upgrading the ignition and coils. used the stock Q jet carbs and it all worked pretty well. I really cant say enough about the 260 i loved the one i had. one of the funest boats i ever had.

26 stinger
 

hey Dave,i have 21p props quick silver stainless steel with alpha ones my goes 56mph running at wide ope throttles at 4500 rpm, the engines were taking out of the boat 3 month ago and rebuilt with new pistons,the cams that we put in the engines are roller cams and i was told by the mechanic that those cams like rpm as well, the heads were ported and they were put on a flow bench and they flow very well,i cant recall the numbers of the top of my head. before installing the engines back on the boat we had them dyno and they dyno at 365 hp each motor,thats why i was a little disapointed on the results/ i think that the props are wrong because is hard to believe that after doind all that work to the engines and increasing 210 total hp that my boat still runs the same/ i did notice alot more torque and is really quick/i really think that this motors are not turning enough rpm,thats my personal opinion , what do you think?

hey dave that picture of the stinger is yours?do you still have the boat?and if you dont have it no more what boat do you own now?
my brother has a 2004 27 ft concept center console with twins merc 250 out board and he is running 51 mph/is a nice boat but rides nothing like my stinger. we have a war going on on who is going to be the fastest and he is spending all this crazy money to kick my ass but i think that is not going to happen

I Was Under The Impression That There Is Not That Many Stingers Out There

Yes that was my baby, I really really liked that boat. anyone that knows me knows how much i preach about that thing. It really never was a great performer but i always had a blast on it. Funny story (and true) Phil Lipshutz brought up the 46 Maximus Cig to our poker run a few years ago and Lake Erie was its usual ugliness. Kick'in steep, close, 5 or 6's. By about the 3rd stop Maximus was on its trailer and i made the entire run in a boat that was probably worth less than the fuel they burned that day :D. I may not have been the first to finish . . . . . . but i finished :cool-smiley-011:

regretfully traded the boat in on a 34' ScarabIII (ok i dont regret it THAT much :D)and i also have a 38 Donzi ZX along with a 24 foot Thompson fishing boat, a 16 foot sidewinder and a Batboat (boating is my life, grew up on the water :cool:).

I hate to say this but i think you may not have the right cams in your boat. If your builder told you those engines like to make power in the higher rpm range he may not have made a good choice for a marine application, atleast yours anyway . Do you have the dyno sheets and were they dynoed with the intakes and carbs pictured above? Torque needs to come on fairly low and flat and the peaks between HP and torque need to have some separation between them.
You should be able to spin at least a 23 no problem. if you have to drop all the way down to a 19 just to get to the peak rpm it wont do you much good because you are than only spinning a 19. besides rpm's like that will kill an Aplha upper pretty quickly. How much experience did your builder have with marine engines? Sorry so many questions and also not trying to degrade the qualifications of your builder but something doesn't add up. See if you can find out what cam is in it. That will help tremendously in figuring this out. Personally i would like to have all the HP peak at about 5000rpm and TQ start to peak in the mid/high 3000rpm range for this type of boat and setup. you need the TQ to come on low to pull you up into the HP.




(disclaimer to the diehard Cig fans- the story above was not to insinuate that the Maximus Cig is an inferior boat in any way but only a humorous anecdote pertaining to the topic at hand. I am quite certain it was merely a simple glitch and Maximus pulled from the run so as not to risk further damage. Yes, it is truly truly an amazing boat :p)

thanks dave for the info. i will have to pull all the paper work from the machine shop and get you all the specs

Silly question, but is your speed via GPS? Also, are you sure that your tachs are right?

If the answer to both questions is yes, then I agree with Dave that something isn't right with the build, probably your cams would be the best place to start. I run 23 Mirage plus props and I have no problem winding up to 4600 with bone stock motors, and I'm sure they'd go farther if I was willing to push them. Okay-HAD no problem right up until the drive couplers went:hitfan:

CCstinger260 i rig the boat with new gauges so i would have to guess that the tac is correct /maybe not and the gps i use is in my black berry cell phone that i have checked against my truck and is pretty accurate/ i think the best thing is to get my mechanic involve and have him go thruogh all the details, but stepping down to a 19 p prop sounds crazy,dont you think?
ccstinger what kind of boat you got?

'83 Stinger 260

yes stepping down to a 19 is nuts, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. you should be able to spin a 23 no prob. find out what your builder has to say and we'll figure it out after that.

I agree with Dave. I had an 87 stinger for a few summers. Twin sbcs not as fresh as dave's.
I think you may have a cam issue, but I was not able to spin much above 4300 and I attributed it to OMC cobra drives, because all else with my sbcs was consistant with other sbcs I have owned. Was using 14.5x 23p.

Another small factor that made Dave's a few mph faster than mine was that he was counter rotating his alphas, while both of my Cobras were right hand.

What a great ride. I miss that boat for the comfy ride.

if some here can give me an advise, in my 26 stinger my swim platform sits on top of the exhaust tips making the noise very deep at nid rpm, it seems to me that the way it was built it creates a air pocket making the noise to close to the rear of the boat, i was thinking in removing the platform to see if the boats gets a little quieter/ i like the noise but not too much/ i like to listen to my music as well when iam in the no wake zone or shoul i try anything else??????

De-ja-vu :D . . . . my boat was the exact same way. I mounted mine under the swim platform just about in line with the floor of the actual deck of the platform. Sounded awsome but yea it is a bit much sometimes, almost viberated the boat it was so deep. I installed silent choice and could switch it to the props when i needed it hushed down a bit, worked like a charm. I did turn some heads though coming into a dock with the loud switch on, most were like "whats in that thing?" :D

I'd say you are under rpm anywhere from 500 to 700 or 800 rpm. These last rpm will really give you some speed! second thing, if I were you, I'd try some other props. And yes, maybe even other 21 ssteel props. If the one that are on it were worked, or damaged and not fixed properly, it may be a part of the solution. But engine Rpm are the biggest concern. I picked up 2 mph for 30-40 more total hp (260 vs 275) My guess is you should run...210 more hp / 30 hp = 7
so 7 x 2 mph= 14 mph faster. so max max would be 70 mph but I think realistic number would be 65-67 mph... just my guess... but you sure have to spin these engines!

Clarify one other thing that would drop your speed,
Is the bottom of the boat Clean? No growth or anti-foul paint? Is it smooth and slick, no residue that needs an acid wash?
Often over looked and a real speed killer.
If you changed your tach's there are settings on the back for 4-6 or 8 Cylinder, make sure you have them on the correct setting.
These two items could be checked before looking into the cam with your mechanic. RPM Seems way off if the HP is correct. Most 260 w/ Merc 260's were 58 mph at close to 5000rpm when new with light fuel a little choppy water an empty beer cooler and Jockey at the helm. The best money spent on a Chris Craft is on the Stereo and Polish, not the engine room. No speed demon whatever u spend. It Is, what It Is.... enjoy her! Good Luck!
VeeCat

glassdave how hard is to install silence choice system in my boat?
how much money are we looking at?
any information helps,

Do you still have the Y pipes that go down to the transom assembly? if yes than it is a pretty simple installation. They mount in the rubber tubes that go from the riser to the transom tips. you also have to install an air pump to operate the cylinders. going rate for a complete setup for twins is in the 4-5 hundred dollar range. well worth it.

i need to know what to buy to make a sylence choice

i am thinking in letting go my stinger to get me a faster boat,
trades up or down with money are welcome.
anything over 25 feet is ok but needs to go in the mid 60s mph.
single engine is ok too.
any body intersted please let me know.
pictures are available of complete restoration of the boat.

how long have you had the boat?

its been in the family since new